Pearls
by PirateMistress
Summary: In a backward tale, love is only the beginning... Jack's past adventures as captain of the Black Pearl weave in and out of his adventures with Elizabeth in the years to follow. JackElizabeth.


I've decided to call this a series of stories, because each section has its own theme and narrative. Also, some of the stories are too long to be single chapters. There will be 9 stories in all, one for each of the Nava Moti, the Vedic Pearls: Oyster, Conch, Cobra, Boar, Elephant, Bamboo, Tree, Whale, Cloud. THE REST OF THE STORY IS POSTED AT MY LJ, WHICH IS LINKED FROM MY PROFILE, FOR ANYONE WISHING TO CONTINUE!

**Title of Series: **Pearls

**Author:** Lady P (piratemistress)

**Disclaimer**: These characters aren't stolen, they're just borrowed, borrowed without permission; for personal, not commercial purposes.

**Tagline:** In a backward tale, love is only the beginning.

**Summary of Series:** Jack's past adventures as captain of the _Black Pearl_ and after weave in and out of his adventures with Elizabeth in the years to follow.

**Pairing:** J/E for the series. Assorted OCs come and go.

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**Chapter: **One

**Title:** Oyster

**Chapter Summary:**

Jack gives Elizabeth a string of pearls.

(Lower those eyebrows, people! Honestly, you are all very, very naughty.)

The pearls have a history that begins in Jack's past, during his captaincy of the _Black Pearl_. Since the series is in reverse order, this story is chronologically last.

**Rating:** R (some sexuality, nothing explicit)

_Pearl of the oyster, born in the heavens, born in the sea, born of the wind, the atmosphere, the lightning and the light, born from the moon, born of gold, our amulet, protect us._

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1. Oyster

_Pearl of the oyster, born in the heavens, born in the sea, born of the wind, the atmosphere, the lightning and the light, born from the moon, born of gold, our amulet, protect us. Bone of the gods, that animated, dwells in the waters, born from the cloud, brought by the river, I fasten upon thee unto life, lustre, strength, longevity, lasting unto a hundred autumns. May the amulet of the pearl protect thee..._

assembled from the Arthava Veda

Elizabeth Swann opened the door to her bedroom in the governor's house, and closed it behind her, as she'd done countless times, fully unaware of the visitor that waited in the shadows.

The only light in the room came from the moon, which was large and luminous above the sea. She walked to the balcony, as she did almost every night, and scanned the horizon in the dark. Moonlight glimmered on the water, and there were British ships and merchant ships, but never the ship she looked for. And like every night, she felt a mixture of disappointment and relief.

With a sigh she stood in front of the mirror and removed the pins from her hair, one by one. She didn't know why she bothered pinning up her hair any more – it wasn't as if there were anyone to admire it. When it fell around her shoulders she found a brush and stroked it through until it shone. It was her own pride, she supposed. She may have lost everything else of importance – or it might have lost her – but her hair was still soft and rich and she liked the feeling of it between her fingers as she braided it into a plait for sleeping. It felt as soft as silk.

When she had finished with her hair, she began to undress. She had learned to do her laces and fastenings herself, because she had no lady's maid. Her father continued to assign them to her although they kept quitting his employ, half because Elizabeth was cool and distant toward them and disliked being spied upon in her room – which was her father's true purpose in insisting upon them – and while most women of her station did keep ladies' maids, most of those ladies were not thought to be immoral, insane, a witch, or all three. If a new girl came to the household she was immediately assigned to Elizabeth; but in a short time the rumors had reached her and she begged not to have to tend "that one."

She was too old to be an unmarried girl of high standing. She was too old to remain under the protection of her father. And yet, she thought, examining herself in the mirror, she was still young. She stood at her dressing table and worked the hooks and ties of her bodice, at her back, and then the skirt, and gathered the garments to hang them in the wardrobe. They were expensive. Her father still bought her nice clothing, in the hopes that she would change her mind – or come to her senses, as he saw it – and decide she wanted to marry after all.

After putting her dress away she stood and looked at herself in her chemise, smoothing the thin fabric over her skin. Yes, still young. She might yet live a life outside of this, she thought, not for the first time. The urge came upon her to peel off her shift, as if often did on extremely hot evenings, and the delicious aura of the forbidden enticed her. Yes, she would sleep nude tonight. She would feel the soft sheets against her skin and sigh for things past. It was one of the few comforts afforded her, any more. She untied the strings and peeled the loose fabric down her arm, exposing her shoulders and breasts to the humid air, and she stared at her reflection, as though judging it.

It was then that she glanced down at her night table and saw what lay upon it.

A strand of pearls was coiled into a spiral in the center of the table. She blinked in the dim light, certain she was imagining them, but they remained in sight and she reached out to touch them. The first cool smooth touch that met her fingertips made her recoil in surprise – they were real. She closed her eyes. She dared not hope. She had finally gone mad.

But then she opened her eyes again, and before the pearls could vanish she reached out and pinched the strand between her thumb and forefinger, hearing the gentle clicks as she unfurled the strand, pulling it toward her.

She had forgotten to breathe. She had forgotten she was half-naked. She had forgotten her own name. But she hadn't forgotten what the pearls meant, though it had been more than a year since she'd heard them spoken of. She reached out with a shaking hand to light a lamp so that she might see them better. Her hand was lifting to light a second lamp when he spoke.

"No no – only one light. They look rounder that way."

She looked up in shock, and in the mirror she saw the figure lounging casually on her bed, who must have been watching her all this time. He was still in shadow but his eyes seemed to shine as they fell pointedly downward from her face. Then his gaze locked with hers again, and she could see the corners of his eyes narrow. "The pearls, I mean."

She turned away from the mirror unmindful of her exposed state, still holding the pearls carefully in one hand, smiling to quell the nervous leaping of her heart, before saying in as dry and even a tone as possible, "How _do_ you keep getting in here?"

"I ought to be practiced at it, by now."

She swallowed. "It's been quite some time."

"I ran into a few difficulties. I'm sure you understand."

She dropped the end of the strand so that it hung, a swinging pendulum of iridescent beads. "And these? What are these?"

"You know what they are. And you know what they mean. It took me longer than I hoped to get hold of them, but there they are."

She closed her eyes, swaying a bit on her feet, feeling her chest close tight. It was really happening. He had really come. "I see," was all she said, turning around to the mirror, sliding the tops of her sleeves back up in a show of modesty, turning her chin to her shoulder to hide her helpless smile. He couldn't see it yet. Let him wonder.

In a second he had leapt from the bed, neatly onto his feet at once, and slid up behind her, quietly, with a sort of feline grace. She wondered if that was how he made his way into the house so easily; silently, sneakily. He lay his hands on her shoulders, and she could still really only see his eyes, for all his clothes were black, a dark scarf wound about his head, and his hair cloaked everything else except his cheeks and lips. "I want to see them on you," he purred, reaching out to take the pearls from her, and resting his forearm on her shoulder to spread them around her neck.

She let him fasten them, keeping her expression as aloof as possible, though she was turning the possibilities over and over inside, churning, aching.

The pearls were beautiful. There was no doubt in her mind that they were the ones he'd described to her before. The center beads were larger, and one sat prominently on her collarbone, and gradually smaller pearls surrounded it on either side, reaching around her neck to where Jack was fastening it with nimble fingers. When he was finished his eyes met hers in the mirror again, and it was as though the rest of the world fell away and there were only his eyes and her eyes and the pearls.

She heard him swallow, saw him tilt his head as he regarded her. Then he turned his head to face her, and looked at her from the very bottom of his eyes. "Get your things," he said in a soft voice.

She did smile a little, then, turning back to the mirror and feigning vain admiration of her reflection. "What makes you so certain I'm willing to go with you?" she murmured, drawing a finger lightly along the strand from one side to the other.

"I'll carry you off, then."

"My father shall send the Navy after us."

"Write him a bloody note."

"Saying?"

"That your pirate's finally come for you and that he should enjoy the remainder of his life."

Jack sounded so serious that she almost laughed to herself, knowing she was torturing him unnecessarily. He really didn't know if she'd go with him. When Jack wasn't being overly arrogant, he seemed to doubt himself completely, even where he shouldn't. Two extremes. It was sort of endearing. She would only torment him a moment or two more.

"I remember your saying it was too dangerous for me. That kind of life."

"It is," he answered, both his black brows folding neatly in the center and lifting up. "But it can't be worse than this." He took a step closer, lifted his hand to cup her jaw, stroked his thumb across her cheek. She shivered. "For either of us."

She was aware of him breathing on her face, on her lips, and he bent closer and kissed her, then, and she was convinced it was a pleading kiss. A convincing kiss. He didn't know he'd convinced her long ago.

She turned away and he released her. She sighed, reaching up to unclasp the pearls and coil them, carefully, back on the night table. She watched as his eyes went to them, went back to her. He's trying to tell what I'm thinking, she realized. He was sizing her up; what does she mean putting them down like that? Isn't she going to wear them forever? was what his eyes seemed to say. She didn't let on, and sighed again in humdrum fashion, as though undecided about whether to wear her green or blue frock down to tea.

"I'll tell you the story you wanted to know about the pearls. Just as soon as we get back to the ship."

For him to add that to the bargain, he had to be harboring serious doubts about her intentions. She was doing marvelously. She traced a finger over the pearls as they lay on the table, making sure to frown and look extremely pensive.

"I suppose I could say you were right, after all," he muttered, and though she wasn't entirely sure what he meant, she knew it must have pained him to admit it.

"Regarding?"

"The cloud pearl," he said, and her eyes snapped back to his. _He remembered_. It was so long ago... and yet...

She straightened and held herself regally as a queen, watching as various expressions flickered over Jack Sparrow's face in the candlelight. Eager anticipation. Confusion. Disappointment. It was almost enough for her to end the suspense.

"Jack," she said, trying to sound bored. She waved a hand in the air next to her shoulder. "There is one more thing I need you to do."

Suddenly he was against her, one hand on her waist, the other cupping her jaw to force her to face him. "Elizabeth," he almost growled, notes of threat beneath the surface, "this is not a game. Thanks to you I've been arrested, jailed, nearly hanged, swallowed, and drowned... I've been pursued by the Navy, guards of this and that, the undead, cannibals, and a giant, most unfriendly squid. I have crossed the world two or three times, been punched, shot, stabbed and nearly gored by an elephant tusk and _you say you want something else_?" He shook her firmly, his eyes flashing. "Hercules did less work and they made him a bloody _god_! What more can you want from me?"

She tilted her head, taking one last look at the room in the mirror, the fancy furnishings, the wardrobe, the door. She thought of her father, and what a burden she'd been to him, how gray she'd made what few hairs he possessed beneath his wig. He had done his best, and so had she, she concluded. Then her eyes met Jack's. "Go open the drawer in the night-table."

He lifted a single brow. "And?"

She smiled, finally, a genuine smile, and let him see it. "Fetch me the ink and paper. I've something to write."

He did not tell her the story as soon as they reached the ship, nor did she really expect him to, or really mind that he didn't, because his hands and mouth and body were occupied with other things well into the night, and it was only as they lay, nearly stuck to each other with perspiration but unwilling to separate, she wearing only the strand of pearls and he nothing at all, that she remembered about the story.

"You owe me the story of the pearls, Jack," she said against his shoulder, feeling the muscles bunch as he gathered her closer against him.

"So I do," he said, closing his eyes. "Not that I haven't enjoyed telling you the others. I just think you'll be disappointed."

"Not if you tell me the truth."

He grinned, looking sideways at her for a moment. "What makes you think I'd tell you the truth?"

"I suppose suggesting that it be out of _love_ would be utterly foolish?"

"Certainly. Nothing alters the truth like love."

"Then perhaps it's true love that can't be altered."

"Oh, but you've sacrificed one or two men on the altar of love, haven't you, Elizabeth?"

She was quiet, trailing her index finger down his chest, gently over the bullet scars of which she now knew the history, and another, newer scar that was written crookedly on his side like an errant pen stroke, while she considered how to respond. Finally she said, "What those men loved wasn't true. I was only a shell."

"And now? I've opened you up?" Jack mused, insinuating a hand between her thighs, which parted too easily for him.

"Jack, the _story_," she reminded him, trying to sound stern as he began to unwind her.

"Yes, right," he said, reluctantly withdrawing his hand and flopping onto his back. "The pearls. Well. These pearls," and he leaned over to brush them with his roughened fingertips, "saved my sorry life. A very long time ago."

"You really have had many lives. Many more than a cat."

"I've heard it said that a man can be reborn many times, too. And if he does something virtuous and good in one life, he'll be blessed in the next."

"For example - the cloud pearl," she said, restraining a smile.

He met her eyes. "If you believe that sort of thing."

They only regarded each other for a moment, and she was certain she loved him then, more than ever before. But all she said was, "The story?"

He took a deep breath, and sighed. "It was shortly after I'd gathered my first pirate crew on the _Black Pearl_. One of the men had heard tavern rumors of a fat Spanish vessel making her away around the Caribbean before making the crossing back with all that gold. We were looking for it, waiting in this cove off Tortuga, or maybe it was San Juan? I can't remember. All of a sudden, Barbossa – you know what happened later, but then we were friendly-like – says, 'Will ye look at that?' and I follow his eyes and in this cove – more of a lagoon – and see what's been dashed against the rocks, still above the water line. I took the glass from him and peered through it, and I can see it's a fifty-foot pinnace."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and raised a brow. "A what?"

Jack turned his head toward her and gave her a golden grin. "A pinnace. Probably twenty tons or so."

"A... fifty-foot, twenty-ton pinnace."

"Precisely. My interest was piqued – naturally – and even though she was a smaller ship than what we were after, I wanted to have a look. You see, a pinnace often leads a fleet or explores dangerous territory ahead of larger ships – moves back and forth to relay messages, that sort of thing - they're smaller, faster ships often carrying nothing of great value."

"Save for the seamen." Elizabeth pressed her lips together to conceal her smile.

Jack caught the mischievous glint in Elizabeth's eye, and his mouth twitched with amusement. "Of course. The wreck was in terrible shape – fore mast fallen completely, nothing upright, so it was clear this one had been devoid of... seamen... for quite some time."

"Go on."

"So I ordered the longboat and we piled in; Barbossa stayed on the _Pearl_ – in retrospect, an unwise decision, he got far too used to command – I took three men to check it out. Meself, Ragetti, a big lout named Frumley who would be good for lifting heavy things, when we explored the wreck and somebody else, too... I forget his real name, but we called him Gargoyle because that's what he looked like."

"I'm surprised you remember them all so well."

He became suddenly pensive, and took on a more serious tone. "You'll see why I do. We rowed over and climbed aboard, and as to be expected there wasn't much to be had. A few rotting corpses, fallen boards, we could get below but only for a little ways. I spied a trunk. Now – if you want me to lie to you, I'll tell you I said 'Hey, mates, let's crack it and divvy up what's inside, eh?' but if you're so bent on the truth, I'll say I snuck into a dark corner to try to see if it had anything of value. I broke the lock easy, but it was stuck together from months in the humid air. I pulled with all my might. Didn't help - it was stuck shut. I looked around to make sure the men weren't watching – they'd wandered off – and then I gave it a good hard kick to pop it open.

It was a man's personal trunk. A hat, tunics, that sort of thing, but at the bottom, something else. Another box. I opened it. And inside were those pearls. Must have been a gift for his lady love, savvy? 'Cept he never got to give it."

He drew a finger along her neck, touching each pearl in turn, sending shivers along her skin.

"Well, one of the men started to shout – the _Pearl_ was signaling us. They'd sighted the Spanish ship. We had to go. I wound the pearls in my hand and followed the others up the steps, and we hustled into the boat and started rowing.

We were halfway across the lagoon to the _Pearl_ when the Spanish ship – passing in full sight of us now - realized they were going to be ambushed. Cannons appeared in the gunwales. I ordered the men to row faster. Had to get back to the ship, I told them.

Just then, the Spaniards fired from one or two cannons they'd readied first. Every man in our longboat panicked, except for me. Two stood up to jump out, and Ragetti flattened himself on the bottom. Well, it lurched and I reached out to steady myself, and the pearls slipped from my hand and fell in the water.

Now. Honestly, I can't say as what possessed me to do what I did. I dove after those pearls. I just – whoops, dropped my pretty thing! Better get it, and in I went. In retrospect, stupid, or at least foolhardy, until you know what happened after.

I was in the water, and the pearls were right there only a few feet down, I dove down and grabbed them in my hand. The second I touched them, I heard a tremendous crash and was thrown sideways in the water. Bubbles, wood, rushing water everywhere. Blood. I surfaced, and I realized our longboat had been blown to smithereens. Cannon shot. Broke it clean in half.

Gargoyle and Frumley were nowhere to be seen. Best I can figure, they were at least knocked out in the blast when the boat broke apart, if not killed outright, and either way couldn't do much swimming. Ragetti was kind of floating on his stomach, and I swam for him and turned him over. He had a piece of wood as long as your hand, stuck in his right eye. He was dazed, half unconscious. "Think I've got something in me eye," he said, before he passed out.

I could hear the _Pearl_ returning fire, but all I could think was, bit of a close one, mate. I wanted the pearls and I took them and I went after them, and that one chance thing separated me from the dead men, the blinded man. I thought about it the whole time as I paddled my way back to the ship, dragging Ragetti alongside me.

We took the frigate. There was gold aboard – not as much as we'd hoped – but it wasn't until the whole battle was done, and her captain was dead at my feet – yes, course I did, does that really surprise you, now? – that I realized, I was still clutching those pearls in my fist."

"I'm glad you went after those pearls," she said against his chest, pressing a kiss above a flat nipple, her hair falling to brush his stomach.

"So am I," he said. "So I've started at the end and gone almost back to the beginning. Have you had enough half-true stories?"

"Never," she said. "And once you go all the way back to the day you were born, you may begin with our meeting again. I shall never grow tired of it."

"I've lived a lot of years," he muttered, eyeing her as she pressed kisses above his navel, across it. "All those stories will take a while."

"We have the rest of our life," she said with a smile. "And all the lives after this one."

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_A/N: Thanks for reading! The story continues, and I don't know that I have the time to save each chapter individually as a WordDoc to post them here on fanfiction. Instead, click the link in my profile which will take you to a table of contents on my LJ! Very easy, all linked up! And if you would care to leave reviews, they are much appreciated, of course, here or on LJ! Lady P_


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